Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday night will deliver a final pitch to voters, less than two weeks out from the election and with early voting already underway, at a CNN town hall in Chester Township, Pennsylvania.
The event, which will start at 9 p.m. ET, comes on the date CNN proposed a second debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump, which Harris accepted but Trump turned down.
Harris, in the closing stretch of the race, has ratcheted up her attacks on Trump’s basic mental competence, increasingly describing the former president as incoherent and “unfit to be president of the United States.” She has also zeroed in more sharply on his role in the gutting of federal abortion rights, calling his often-callous discussion of the issue a mark of “cruelty.”
Trump, in turn, has continued to swing wildly at Harris and, over the past few weeks, seen fit to question – and sometimes assail – Jewish, Black and Latino voters who are supporting the Democrat.
But for all the rhetoric, organizing and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaign ads, the race is looking like a coin-toss – as both campaigns show signs of frustration with the relative stability of national and battleground state polling.
Here are five things to watch for during Harris’ town hall, moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper:
Trump talk: Harris’ campaign has over the past few weeks increasingly questioned whether Trump is mentally and physically fit for another four years in the White House.
“He’s becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged, and it requires that response,” Harris told reporters last weekend in Detroit. “I think the American people deserve better than someone who actually seems to be unstable.”
It is many ways a reversal of the strategy Trump and allied Republicans used for years to pillory President Joe Biden, before the 81-year-old incumbent dropped out of the 2024 race in July. Harris, who just turned 60, has kept up a frenetic campaign schedule and derided Trump for dropping out of scheduled interviews – with one report citing “exhaustion” as the cause. She has also appeared more willing to reference bizarre behavior, like when the 78-year-old Republican stopped a recent town hall to sway and dance for 39 minutes in front of a confused-looking Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor meant to be moderating the event.
At the same time, surveys of undecided voters continue to signal that they want to know more about Harris and her policy plans. She has already pitched one of the most ambitious expansions of senior care in modern US history, though it rarely gets a thorough hearing.
Harris does not necessarily need to choose between pitching herself and deriding Trump, but town hall questions often give candidates the leeway to steer the conversation. Where she goes will provide new insight into how she and her campaign view the race.
Keep reading for more things to watch ahead of tonight’s CNN town hall.